A jury will resume deliberations Friday in the trial of the man charged in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting rampage.

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Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is representing himself, refused to give a closing argument in the trial Thursday and was mostly silent throughout the trial. He called no witnesses and did not testify in his own defense amid charges of killing 13 people and injuring 30 others at the Texas military base.

Hasan, an American-born Muslim, has confessed to the massacre, saying he did it to protect Muslims from American soldiers overseas.

An Independence mother has been following the trial closely. Peggy McCarty's daughter, Keara Torkelson, was one of dozens injured in the shooting rampage.

McCarty said she has kept every newspaper she could get her hands on, along with countless pictures of her daughter's experience. The events are chronicled in an album, but McCarty said she'd like to bring this particular chapter to a close.

"My first reaction is to have him have the death sentence, but now he's saying that's what he wants so he can be a martyr," she said. "It's hard to decide what really is the best thing to be done."

Torkelson was shot twice. One of the bullets grazed her head. Had it been an inch lower, Torkelson would have died.

"She's so fortunate," she said.

She said that the trial has weighed so heavily on her daughter's mind that McCarty went to Texas couple of weeks ago to be by her daughter's side during her testimony.

"When she got up there and saw him and how pitiful he looked, and he looked sickly, she said she stared at him until he looked away, and it empowered her to let him know that he doesn't have control over her anymore," McCarty said.

She said the most difficult part of the trial has been listening to the other victims details the accounts of the rampage.

"I heard the people ahead of her talking about that they saw her and what they had seen because they had to go into details of having blood on their face or on their hand," McCarty said. "Seeing it from their point of view instead of hers was really hard."

While the physical scars will never fade, she said the emotional wounds cut far deeper than anyone will ever know. Even though nothing can ever take back the damage that was done, nothing can ever break the bonds that the families of the victims and survivors now share.

"The Fort Hood family we have, it's very strong and we all back each other up and support each other, no matter what, so it's nice to be able to have that," she said.

McCarty said she was relieved that Hasan never cross-examined Torkelson during the trial. Torkelson is expected to return to the Kansas City area on Friday to spend time with her family.